Now you’re the service provider – Fair Trading for your clients

With the NDIS rolling out across Australia, this brings significant change for people with disability and the disability sector. Until now, the government has provided or funded services directly to people with disability. The government is now providing individualised funding for people with disabilities through the NDIS. As a result, people with disability will be responsible for buying products and entering into contracts and services agreements with service providers.

This will be a new experience for many of the people you are supporting. They may not have developed the skills and confidence necessary to make informed decisions in this marketplace. Therefore, it is your responsibility to know about your clients’ consumer rights, for their protection as well as your own.

Fair Trading, in collaboration with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), is providing a community education project on what protective actions individuals can take to protect themselves, including what to look out for and how to complain if something goes wrong.

Important Notice: While we verify certain key information (police checks, key qualifications, references) during the on-boarding of each care worker, they represent other information about themselves to customers via their profiles that we do not independently verify. In exercising your choice of care worker and hiring them directly, we recommend that you check their credentials and original documents when you first meet them and provide ongoing supervision. We recommend that care workers take a file of their key documents with them to their first meeting.